Unlock
by Krimz
Summary: Several seconds, minutes, hours, lifetimes passed as I stood at the threshold of Dr. Brennan’s living room. I didn’t pretend to understand Brennan or even like her, but for the first time I felt her. Pre-PitH. Cam POV. B/B. One-shot.


**Hello, Bones folk! This is my first foray into the Bones universe but it is a very delayed response to _Pain in the Heart_ that needed to pour out of me. There are certain nuances that Emily Deschanel employs that just tear my heart out and the faces and fidgeting and general aura she used in the first minutes of this episode revealed so much in so little. The POV is Cam because I am very interested in how she understands Brennan and wanted to explore that a little. Also, I played off the fact that she seemed very, very patient with Brennan pre-funeral and during the service.**

**B/B, because there is nothing else. :)**

**Thank you for checking this out, if you're reading on! **

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I've decided it is a very good thing that Dr. Brennan is awful at reading people.

I can't do it anymore. I'll be damned if I can continue to hide any of my frustration with her condescending, demeaning, frustratingly inhuman and emotionally inept idiosyncrasies. Not anymore, anyway, and definitely not today. I was beginning to forgive her for her ways over the months I've spent as her boss. I know she's brilliant and Lord knows _she_ knows she's brilliant and being as she is a member of my team, I acknowledge that her expertise is the reason why I can gloat about closed case rates. I know most of her flaws are unintentional. I do know that. I know the ones that aren't are usually the result of tangible issues—like my brashness towards foster children during one of our first cases together. Her anger then was understandable. It even had its benefits, allowing a little more communication between us. She knows she can tell me about things like that, things that make her human. I _want_ her to be human to me. I _want_ her to tell me these things. I thought I made that clear.

But maybe she isn't human after all.

Seeley is dead.

Seeley is dead and for the past eight days, Dr. Brennan has had nothing to say for it. Seeley took a bullet for her and I watch her go through the workdays completely _unaffected_. She shows up at the same time every morning, drinks the same cup of coffee. Her hair always neat, those eyes always wide and focused. She works efficiently from task to task during the day, late mornings spent identifying in Limbo, afternoons writing up case reports, and when we get a body, she's there with the gloves already snapped. Like always. And at the end of the night her paperwork is on time in that same neat print-scrawl, labeled and organized and always the easiest for me to file.

She'd just handed me her latest stack from today's case when I finally snapped. I didn't say anything out loud, but when she handed me those papers I "accidentally" nudged a photo frame—a photo of Seeley that hadn't been on my desk until lately—toward her. I saw her eyes flicker over it, maybe for a millisecond, and I was hoping, praying I'd see something in them. Sadness, grief. Something. And I really believed that I would. I had faith that she had a heart in her. But there was nothing.

Nothing at all.

She turned and walked out calmly and collectedly, throwing a "Goodnight, Dr. Saroyan," over her too-steady shoulder and disappearing around the corner. Her car keys jangled as she produced them from her bag and I heard the even clicking of her boots fade as she approached the elevator. A ding and Dr. Brennan was gone.

I could've said a lot of things but I was proud of my self control. I wasn't even sure if I'd get the emotional response I'd be digging for if I screamed "You're aware he died for you, right?" across the lab.

I wondered for a moment where she may go after work. I hoped, again giving her far too much credit, that she'd been bar-hopping to drown her sorrows every night for the past eight days. But back to her apartment was the realistic possibility. My eyes fell to the floor then and I realized that tonight, returning to her apartment wasn't going to happen. It seemed Dr. Brennan's skull key ring had snapped free of her car keys and what looked like the lab and morgue key and her apartment key lay in my doorway.

The skull keychain had landed upright and smiled at me as if trying to get me to do the right thing and catch her before she left the campus. But surely she'd realize she was missing half of her keys and double back, right? And if not, maybe she deserved to be locked out of her apartment for a night. Anything was better than lying dead on a karaoke stage, right?

I groaned. Booth wouldn't have appreciated me being this childish. I had to smother my bitterness as I stood up to get her damn keys and I made my way for the parking garage.

I hadn't run into her on the way to the garage so she wasn't turning back. I figured she'd be already gone. I was right—her parking spot was freshly empty. But somehow I couldn't let myself leave her to be locked out of her apartment. Damn guilt. Yeah, maybe she'd come back when she realized her keys may be here, but maybe we needed a talk anyway. And maybe cornering her at her home was what she needed. So I went back to my office, looked up her address in her employee file, grabbed my keys, and set out to catch her.

Seeley, please… please, don't let me get _too_ angry with her, because I think I'm doing this for you.

ooo

I parked my car in the empty spot next to Dr. Brennan's. However, if I didn't know what kind of car she drove I'd never peg this park job as hers. By all appearances she'd ripped into this space cockeyed and had hardly braked before slamming her car into park. Odd for anyone just returning home from their job.

I stepped out of my car, her keys clutched in my hand as a reminder of why I was here. Not to harass one of my team members. Not to judge a lack of grieving for the greatest man this world may ever behold. Just to return necessary items.

I took the steps two at a time to the second floor and found her door at the end of the hallway. I'd expected to see her waiting outside, locked out. Her car was here; she was clearly present somewhere in the vicinity. Then I realized she probably had a spare key either here or in her car… I knew this was a bad idea. Why was I even here, at Dr. Brennan's doorway? I rolled my eyes. To return keys.

So I knocked.

No response. I knocked again and heard nothing. I was about to give up, to turn and leave, but I had a strange feeling. The way she'd parked, there was no way that…

I used her key and twisted the doorknob cautiously. The apartment was dim and it took a while for my eyes to adjust and when they did, I still saw no Dr. Brennan. No, I didn't _see_ her, but I heard something. My heart fell to my toes.

I heard something that couldn't _possibly_ have been Dr. Brennan.

I turned the corner into her sitting area and saw the outline of her on her box windowsill, frames and books and pottery that must've once occupied that same space now strewn and broken on the floor. Her arms were thrown around her knees and I was amazed that a woman of her height could contort so tightly. She was shaking, she was shaking and—oh, God. _That_ was the sound. The strangled sobs were like nothing I've ever heard and I've questioned broken mothers who'd watched their kids get shot on the streets of the Bronx. I couldn't tell if she was aware of my presence but even if she was, she could barely take in enough oxygen before she broke on another sobbing fit, so speaking seemed out of the question.

Some people are whiny criers, some people are silent criers, and some people only cry if it's not them crying but their imploded hearts.

"Dr. Brennan…"

Her eyes turned on me but as she sucked in three rapid breaths before breaking on a moan all over again, she turned away and curled tighter. No kind of leadership and management training I'd ever received could prepare me with a reaction to that face. The face of someone who only minutes ago I'd drawn to be heartless and unfeeling was flushed red, dripping with tears from jaw and chin and nose. All the makeup she'd worn today was gone as if she'd been in waterworks the moment she stepped into her car. Still in some work clothes, she'd balled up her blazer and was hugging it to herself and it was clear she'd barely stormed in before falling apart. She looked like a _child_. I didn't know how to respond, how to behave. This was not Dr. Brennan and I only knew Dr. Brennan and I had no idea what to do with this hysterical little girl, nor did I think she could ever exist.

So I took one step toward her and then stepped back again and I hated myself and I hated Booth because he took that bullet. He took that bullet when, as I could now clearly see, Brennan wanted that bullet in her chest more than anything in the world.

Several seconds, minutes, hours, lifetimes passed as I stood at the threshold of Dr. Brennan's living room as horrible things ripped her newly-discovered soul to shreds. Shreds of a woman who was clearly drowning in a place where books and degrees and facts and logic could be of no help. I didn't pretend to understand Brennan or even like her, but for the first time I felt her. Felt every rock of her skeleton as she pitched emotions from the darkest little cave she hid from us all.

I was lost in her pain when she looked up again and I realized she'd gone silent.

"Dr. Saroyan, I appreciate you coming all the way here," Dr. Brennan muttered in the most monotone voice I'd ever heard her produce. "I hadn't realized my keys—I—thank you, but you really didn't have to as I had a spare."

As if everything was status quo. As if she wasn't curled up among broken knick knacks on her windowsill, still shaking with the after effects of her breakdown. As if I hadn't watched her practically vomit tears.

"How can you do that?" I suddenly spouted. I dropped the keys on the coffee table and walked to her directly. Hearing that detached, cold, familiar voice reminded me exactly why her tears were so shocking in the first place.

"I don't know what you mean—" she started, her face away toward the window.

"No. Don't even _try_ to give me that, Dr. Brennan." The rage I was fearing I'd let slip before was now showing itself, even though my initial assumptions were disproved. "I was coming over here ready to rip you one because I thought you didn't care that Seeley gave his _life_ for you and—"

I had thought with her formalities she was back into scientist mode and that the blatant honesty she normally admired would be acceptable. But when she threw her head back and let out the most strangled "stop" on a whimper, I realized I'd assumed wrong. "Stop," she whispered again. "Please."

She placed her feet on the ground, her breathing heavy. I couldn't believe I'd overlooked it, or maybe she was just excellent with cosmetics, but I suddenly saw the bags under her eyes, the pallor behind the tear rashes. Had I overlooked it; had she hidden it? Or had I just assumed she wouldn't care enough about Booth's death to have any physical signs of grief? Had I assumed everything I judged about her?

Maybe the world assumed too much when it came to Dr. Brennan. Everyone except Booth.

"Jesus, Dr. Brennan," I said. "I am so sorry." And it was awkward, but I reached out to hug her. As expected, she didn't respond. She stayed stiff in my light grasp. But I didn't know what else to do because… "I don't know who you are right now, or what I'm doing here, but I'm sorry. For assuming… for Booth… I—"

"Dr. Saroyan," she said as evenly as she could manage, though I noticed her eyes were flitting around anxiously; not an expression I've ever seen in those blues. "I'm being irrational. There is no reason for your sympathy. If anything, your loss is far greater than mine. You… you were in a romantic relationship. We were partners. I lost a partner." Her voice cut out.

"You lost more than a partner and you know that," I said. I thought about my next words carefully but decided on throwing caution to the wind. "Dr. Brennan, I'll be honest with you. I don't _get_ you. I never have and I probably never will. The fact that I am seeing you cry is kind of freaking me out because quite frankly, my initial assumptions of you didn't really include the ability to feel." I said the last part a little lightly, but her expression stayed dark. "Look, Brennan. What I'm trying to say is... people have their opinions about you, but Booth seems to be the only one to ever figure you out."

Her face collapsed and she put a hand to her mouth as if it would hide the reaction I already saw. "I would've taken that bullet, Dr. Saroyan," she said choppily, fighting off the offending emotions. "Pam wanted _me_ dead, not Booth. It was meant for me and I should be the dead one, I… he shouldn't be… why did he jump in front of me like that?"

"Shh…" I hushed uncomfortably, so unused to the vulnerability she was begrudgingly revealing. "I think you know why he did."

She swallowed hard and suddenly, as if she'd been caught committing some heinous crime, she stood and ran a hand through her hair. "Thanks for… thanks for the keys," she said, looking everywhere but at me. She was panicked, like she'd been found out.

Which she had been.

"You're welcome," I said, turning because I knew this was my cue to leave. And I would, no questions asked, no further analysis, and I knew she wouldn't prolong my stay by—

"Dr. Saroyan."

"Yes?" I responded, turning around. She looked like that little girl again, all tear-washed skin and socked feet and painfully ashamed.

"I didn't mean to let you see me like this," she said softly, her hand clenching and unclenching at her side almost imperceptibly.

"Clearly not. You're in your home with the door locked. You live alone. I broke in," I said simply, but I knew there was more to it. I just knew when to let the pressure up but I also expected she wouldn't take the offer, so I made my steps towards her front door small and paced.

"I meant ever," she said, crossing her arms across her chest, trying to regain stature. "This isn't professional or in any way productive and I hate to—I'm not compartmentalizing very well." The arms dropped again. So did the act. "I… I can't after I lock that door."

As I got to the door, I looked back at her with a sad smile. "I'll see you at work tomorrow. Take care of yourself, okay? Just remember, home is where you're allowed to let go and feel things and not care what people think. Home is where you're just Temperance, Dr. Brennan."

I turned the knob and had barely stepped out when she said quietly, so quietly that I know she didn't mean for me to hear, "Home was Booth."

ooo

"Booth had a selfless commitment to his work, first in the military and then the FBI. Two weeks ago, he made the ultimate sacrifice, giving his life to save his partner—and in that brave act he showed us what greatness we're all capable of."

"That woman was aiming for me. I would've happily taken that bullet."

"I know, Sweetie."

Dr. Brennan's entire body bounced as she locked her knee in and out and I felt privy to some secret I should've never heard. Because to everyone else except maybe Angela her fidgeting looked like impatience. Did they know? Did they know how much she felt? I was the last person to ever have insight into the mind of Temperance Brennan, but the day had come. Normally I'd have found her louder-than-stage-whisper outbursts at Booth's service to be a little obnoxious but not this time. Funny how she had us all so fooled into thinking she could compartmentalize her "partner's" death.

Funnier how obvious her agony was when you knew what was really up.

I could barely bite my tongue when the team decided to round her up from her remains to come here. I thought it was pretty damn obvious how her incessant cataloguing was a cover—a flimsy cover, too. Letting her hair drop into her face didn't hide the flush that had been riding her cheeks since I saw her walk in this morning. So the whole idea of getting in the poor woman's face seemed unfair to me because what they all believed to be her "compartmentalizing," I knew to be the biggest disguise of horrible mourning of all time. It made sense, then, that no one was successful in breaking her focus except me.

"That's enough," I said, sounding more maternal than I was comfortable with. "We're going. Now."

Her face snapped to mine, a crazed look of don't-you-dare-throw-me-under-the-bus in her eyes. "I have remains to identify."

After a moment of tense and awkward struggle with her unrelenting—and only in this instance, heartbreaking—stubbornness, Angela gave her the out she needed. It was a genius maneuver to get Brennan to the service without guilt and I could have hugged her for it. After being exposed to Brennan's breakdown I felt oddly responsible for her sanity and… and I couldn't help but think it was Seeley looking out for the woman _through_ me. And because I loved him and because he deserved it, I'd do it.

Dr. Brennan's bouncing was reaching her shoulders now, her jaw working. She had that foreign, shifty look again and I knew it was awful, but watching her out of the corner of my eye distracted me from having to stare at Seeley's coffin. "If there were a merciful god, why wouldn't he have saved Booth?" I heard her say forcefully, but her voice caught ever so slightly and the team shot her looks of shock. I clenched. She wasn't going to be able to keep this down for much longer and by the looks of it, her need to let go of the compartmentalized façade was overriding her ability to avoid suspicion. My heart was stampeding because God only knew what she'd do the second she lost it.

I could only thank the man up high that the firing squad was preparing their fire off and this would be over soon.

Or so I thought. Fighting wasn't normal at funerals, right? The atmosphere had changed so fast that I could hardly keep up but from the looks of it, one of the squadron members was now launching himself at a shady guy who had approached the gathering and I heard Angela say, "What the hell is going on?" before all hell broke loose and the mystery man produced a gun to point at—at—

No! It couldn't be him, because then who would be in the—and just then, the coffin overturned with the force of their two colliding bodies and a mannequin tumbled out directly in front of Dr. Brennan.

Confusion, elation, and shock were quickly ripped from her face to be replaced by the most smoky, unreadable expression I'd ever seen her wear. Her mind worked at warp speed so it had clicked with her before it had even registered with the rest of us: Booth was alive—yes, he was alive, wonderful, beautiful, happy day!—but it had been a _lie_ and it had left her spending secret nights on her windowsill choking on her heart.

So when she grabbed that fake leg and knocked the shmuck with the gun unconscious, it was only so she could inflict her own kind of damage… and Booth couldn't even know what was coming when she hooked him in the face and sent him flat, breathing like a rodeo steer.

Attagirl.

ooo

I know that what transpired in Dr. Brennan's apartment was not usual behavior and I know that it should never and will never be mentioned again. And I know that Seeley will never know what those two weeks did to that woman. No one was _supposed_ to know to begin with, especially not me of all people.

But Dr. Brennan dropped off her files tonight for our latest case, just like always, neat and clean in that print-scrawl cursive. And when she handed me the folder, it was _her_ hand that accidentally nudged that photo of Booth that I'd yet to remove. Her eyes flickered over it for a millisecond, just like last time, but then stopped on it again. A quiet sigh and an almost undetectable squint. The Brennan version of a smile. She turned to leave and threw a "Goodnight, Dr. Saroyan," over her shoulder.

"Goodnight, Dr. Brennan."

I saw her produce her keys from her bag and double check they were all there before walking to the elevator.


End file.
